conlangfandomcom-20200223-history
Yuktepat
Yuktepat (Yuktepat yuk, "language" + Tepat) is a Macro-Tepatic language, the official language of the Conciliarity of Tepat, and the chief spoken language in the Qoyot Basin. As the preeminent literary language on the continent Tiptum, Yuktepat is the source of learned borrowings in surrounding languages, and a language of instruction in many schools in countries with other official languages, having at the height of the Conciliarity's power perhaps 50 million native speakers and as many as 25 million non-native speakers. Tepatic glyphs evolved to write Old Yuktepat, and have since been adapted to write all the major languages of Tiptum. This article focuses primarily on standard Classicial Yuktepat. History The earliest indication of Yuktepat is in inscriptions a couple thousand years old. Since then it has passed through several stages, roughly corresponding to the political changes in Tepat's history: # Archaic Yuktepat - during the period of the earliest glyphs, extending into the early Nyow dynasty, when the writing system became fully functional. # Old Yuktepat - from the period of the first complete books up until the ending of the Period of Division, during which massive stylistic changes occurred in the glyphs, and almost all traces of former inflection were lost. Also during this period the Yuknotoq language began to diverge from Yuktepat. # Classical Yuktepat - the most well defined period. It is considered to date from the 12th year of the Kwan dynasty, when the king forced a standardized script on the newly unified country. This standard continued for over 500 years until the collapse of the Conciliarity, and forms the basis for this article, except where noted. # Late Yuktepat - beginning with the collapse of the Conciliarity, and occupation by Swíra. Now lacking centralized political power and transportation infrastructure, the remaining dialects diverged toward limited mutual intelligibility. Writing System Yuktepat has always been written in Tepatic glyphs (klût Tepat in Yuktepat), a native logographic system. The glyphs have from the very beginning been designed to fit the Yuktepat language; the use of phonetic elements in the glyphs follows which words rhyme in early Classical Yuktepat. Later on, stylized glyphs are fragments of glyphs were adapted to form a phonetic syllabary, but this has never replaced the original logographic system. Grammar Phonology Yuktepat has seven vowels. The consonants show a distinction between aspirated and unaspirated stops and affricates. Because of a law that final obstruents are unreleased, fricatives and affricates are not permitted in word-final position, nor are aspirated stops. Morphology As an isolating language, Yuktepat has almost no inflection. Traces of it exist in a few areas of vocabulary, such as the number system. Yuktepat does allow the formation of new words by compounding, and reduplication is optional to indicate both plurality (in nouns) or habitual or iterative aspect (in verbs). However, some of the syllable-glyphs known as "particles" might be considered derivational affixes. Among them are: * kû- appears on a number of nouns, with a variety of meanings, or no apparent meaning at all ** kû-tom "child" * mi- "without X, X-less" ** xum "mother," mi-xum "orphan" * se- / sa- / so- / sô-, an unproductive prefix with no clear meaning which appears on a small number of nouns ** Salam "Mars" ** setep "enemy" ** Sopûq "Sopih (name of the world)" * ti- "with X, having X, X-ful" ** syol "culture," ti-syol "cultured, civilized" * yaq- agent noun marker, "one who does X" ** sak "make," yaq-sak "maker, worker" Syntax Yuktepat is a head-initial language, and all modifiers follow the words they modify. The basic word order subject-object-verb. All sentences have an overt subject. Additionally, all predicates begin with an obligatory particle of the class called predicators, which indicate tense, and include kô, ôl, and tu. Therefore, the minimal grammatical sentence has three parts: subject, predicator, and predicate. The predicate can be either a verb or a noun. Since there is no copula, "be" sentences are indicated simply by a noun right after the predicator. Links Classical Yuktepat Grammar (more complete, but slightly out of date)